Title: A Swing Between Fundamental Values and Democracy to Build a “Good Society”: The 2025 Swedish Act on State Subsidies to Faith Communities
Abstract: The seminar offers a legal analysis of the 2025 Swedish Act on State Subsidies to Faith Communities, focusing on the normative evolution of the “fundamental values” criterion and its intersection with the democratic one. Through the lens of two recent decisions adopted by the Swedish Agency for State Support to Faith Communities—concerning the Russian Orthodox Church and the Swedish Islamic Shia Community—Giuseppina Scala highlights the interpretative challenges posed by vague statutory language and the increasing reliance on national security assessments in administrative decisionmaking. The seminar situates the Swedish model within Rik Torfs’ foundational reasons theory, identifying a shift toward a security-based rationale for religious financing. It further examines the implications of this shift for legal certainty, religious freedom, and the principle of equality. Ultimately, the seminar argues for the necessity of clearer legal standards and structured inter-institutional dialogue to ensure that public funding mechanisms contribute to the construction of a pluralistic and a coherent “good society.”
Bio: Giuseppina Scala is a Researcher in Law and Religion at the Interdisciplinary Center for “Sciences for Peace” (CISP) at the University of Pisa (Italy) and Affiliated Research Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development in Bologna. She also teaches at Bocconi University in Milan. She is the PI of the DiReSoM project “Multi-faith rooms as a skill for conflict transformation” and responsible for the Spin-off project “Legal Reforms in Nordic Constitutionalism: the Challenges of a State-religion” within the main research f ield “Constitutionalism in Illiberal Democracies”. She published widely in the fields of law and religion and comparative public law with particular reference to the countries of Northern Europe and she authored the monograph “Diritto Pubblico Subiettivo e Libertà Religiosa. Profili di Diritto Comparato” (Subjective Public Right and Religious Freedom. Comparative Law Perspectives, Pup, Padova. 2021).